progress for Dwan Madiki

The past few days we have made so much progress with our vision for the Dwan Madiki Partnership, so I figured it's finally time to give an update!

Our goals for the summer have slightly shifted but that's because the needs of the organization and the people have changed.

After numerous meetings here with those of us from Invisible Conflicts and local representatives of Dwan Madiki (like Grace), we have come to a consensus that Dwan Madiki Partership's (DMP) most pressing need is:

a local, Ugandan Board of Directors

We have met countless people from NPO's, INGO's (International Non-Gov Organizations), and CBOs (Community Based Organizations). And from 100% of them (especially local Ugandans) we have heard that they often put the most faith in CBOs.

Why?

Well, generally speaking a CBO is guided and administrated by local professionals through a Board of Directors. So the idea is that, in essence, we (as foreigners) do not have the cultural-understanding to be able to "lead" or "make the decisions" anymore. Rather than us working from the US, this Board of Directors will intimately know the culture, the community, its needs, and its resources as they pertain to DMP.

Concretely here's how we've moved forward in this. There have been 2 major meetings recently that have filled us with so much inspiration and hope for the future of DMP.

1) Through Grace and Father Leonsyo, we've been connected with a priest who lives IN Lacor (outside of Gulu) where DMP is based. He already knows all of the guardians and is a teacher at the local seminary. Saturday we hosted a Ugandan-style meeting, which means there is ALWAYS food served. In the presence of Father Leonsyo and Grace, I got to represent our group to him, explaining that we are in a place of change for DMP and would love his guidance on finding a Board of Directors. Needless to say, he responded speaking of "sharing and sacrifice" in life, "the gift of the work we do for his people", and his "eager willingness to move forward with us to develop Dwan Madiki".

In other words, we have an extremely trustworthy, educated, community member now guiding us through the process of finding a Board!

2) Then on Sunday, Grace had organized a gathering with the Guardians' Association of DMP for us to meet them and communicate about our summer goals. We heard from the Chairman and others who's words mainly shared the recent difficulties due to the lack of a Board of Directors. We all responded together with excitement to find that they (separate of us) and we (separate of them) have all come to the same realization that a Board of Directors is the most important need of DMP for the summer.

The guardians then presented us with a gift (very parent-like) of avocados, mangos, bread, butter, and toilet paper! They gave us our Acholi names... and thanked us for our presence and aid to them in these hard times.

What's my Acholi name????

Lakica. (la-ki-sha) It means, kind or merciful one.